Want your garden to blossom? Follow experts from big suburban gardens
So your trips to the garden center are getting a tad stale.
You find yourself reaching for the petunias, the marigolds, the ferns. Sure, those are all fine, but why not go for the real beauties, the showstoppers?
As suburban parks and botanic gardens unveil their summer displays, we chatted with the horticulturists who spend about a year planning the designs that must consider not only color but fragrance, texture and height. They offered some professional advice to promote greener thumbs - and gave us a peek at their creations.
Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe
What to see: Part of the outdoor museum's core mission is showing “the breadth of the botanical world,” says Andrew Bunting, assistant director and director of plant collections. That's especially clear in the Heritage Garden, where perimeter beds are grouped by geography.
One notable native to South America, the Uruguayan Firecracker, is “a fantastic attractor of hummingbirds,” Bunting says. Even better? Its tubular, reddish flowers will bloom all summer.
Pro tip: So your garden has a defiant streak. The bad boy of the plant world? Naranjilla. “It kind of is a wicked-looking plant with all its thorns, but it's so unusual looking,” Bunting says. “It's not your typical annual by any stretch of the imagination.”
Growing trend: Big, tropical foliage. Elephant ears - gardeners can easily find more than 50 different kinds - offer a dramatic backdrop for vibrant flowers.
Cantigny Park, Wheaton
What to see: Take a stroll around Cantigny this summer and you'll probably feel like a kid again. Remember that time you built a backyard fort or took family trips to the beach? Maybe there's a memory you'd like to forget. Like sitting at the kid's table and nibbling at a seven-layer salad. Cantigny's horticulturists have managed to re-create such scenes from their own childhood memories.
Most, if not all, of those summer gardens will be planted by the end of next week. And in the Octagon Garden, youngsters can climb under that fort, made from an overhead trellis around a weeping crabapple tree.
In Cantigny's Idea Garden - a good spot to discover something new - Joy Kaminsky is taking a nostalgic look at Dr. Seuss books with wacky flower shapes and bold, clashing shades of burgundy and pink. “We always want to be doing new and different, but there's something special about reflecting back,” Cantigny's horticulture director says.
Pro tip: Speaking of nostalgia, geraniums usually get a bad rap as old-fashioned and high-maintenance. That's why Kaminsky needed some convincing when one of her designers wanted to build a garden around a memory of Grandma's geraniums. But Kaminsky and her team found newer varieties (see: the Calliope and Moonlight series) that likely won't need as much pinching. The spent blooms “just tend to fade away,” Kaminsky says. In other words, they're not your grandma's geraniums.
Growing trend: With all the buzz about “farm-to-table” restaurants, gardeners are keeping entertaining in mind. “Everyone's trying to bring a little bit of urban agriculture to their own footprint,” Kaminsky says. For containers, she recommends mint, an herb grown for cocktails or desserts that “you can't kill.”
Ball Seed, West Chicago
What to see: Many public gardens throughout the suburbs turn to Ball's massive seed and plant catalog when they begin developing the look for summer beds. The company's trial gardens - a testing ground typically restricted to customers - will open for public tours Aug. 7. Admission is $7.
Pro tip: AngelMist angelonia thrive in container gardens - and the heat, says Jim Nau, manager for The Gardens at Ball.
Growing trend: Ever-popular impatiens took a hit from the destructive downy mildew disease in recent years. But Ball's Bounce and Big Bounce line resist the illness.
Morton Arboretum, Lisle
What to see: Calming colors - blues, purples, pinks and whites - will “complement our landscapes really well,” says Katrina Chipman, the arboretum's horticulture coordinator who designs the annual beds near the Visitor Center. By mid-June, summer flowers will be settling into their new digs and really begin to blossom. And be sure to bring your smartphone. The species names of nearly 90 percent of what's planted at the arboretum are posted online in an interactive map at Mortonarb.org.
Pro tip: Unlike their shorter relatives, Lollipop verbena grow up to 4 feet tall. “That's one we're really excited about,” Chipman says of the pollinator plant, a favorite of butterflies.
Growing trend: No-fuss succulents and agaves. In the children's garden, the arboretum is creating “this awesome display” of succulents in pots, Chipman says. If you go on a vacation or just plain forget about these resilient types, succulents bounce right back with a good watering.
Friendship Park Conservatory, Des Plaines
What to see: Master gardeners trained in a University of Illinois Extension program run an “answer desk” and share their expertise via a hotline at (847) 298-3502 from 9 a.m. to noon Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and noon to 3 p.m. Saturdays through October.
Registration has closed for master gardening classes that will begin this fall at the conservatory owned by the Mount Prospect Park District. The next round of training won't start until 2018, but sign up early. Applications open in February, and courses “always fill up,” said Kim Ellson, horticulture educator for the north Cook County program.
Pro tip: If you're looking to establish a garden with plants native to Illinois - one new topic covered by classes this year - Ellson stresses “try and start small.” And consider potted plants or plugs, as seeds may have to go through a cold cycle to germinate, Ellson writes in a blog at Web.extension.illinois.edu.
Growing trend: Hotline callers frequently ask master gardeners about what can be grown to support bees and other pollinators. In fact, it's the No. 1 query, Ellson says. She suggests milkweed to lure the monarch butterfly. “That's a beautiful bloomer, a nice one to get started with,” she says.
Naperville Riverwalk
What to see: When you're planting around a 15-foot-tall - and flaming red - sculpture, you've got to find an annual that can hold its own. Tiffani Picco chose the perfect foil in ornamental chili peppers, once again setting off the Landforms sculpture on Jackson Avenue and Eagle Street.
“Everybody loved them, so we decided to bring them back this year,” says Picco, who has to factor in all the art - and varying conditions - around 13 beds along the Riverwalk and Centennial Beach.
Pro tip: Riverwalk plants spend a couple of days under a shade cloth at a Naperville Park District maintenance yard before they go in the ground. That's because many arrive from greenhouses, where sunlight is filtered through a grass roof.
“So if you take them out of there and throw them right in the sunlight, they almost get sunburn because they're not used to that direct light,” says Picco, the district's park specialist. At home, slowly introduce greenhouse plants to full sun, a process called “hardening off.”
Growing trend: BabyWing begonias aren't exactly new, but they produce glossy leaves, act as fillers and earn a glowing endorsement from Picco. “It really does its job,” she says.